Date: 2017-03-25

A mysterious fire has destroyed multi-million naira teak plantation and several other green investments in the University of Ilorin, amidst growing speculation on campus that the fire was caused through metaphysical means.

It was gathered that the fire incident, which happened last week, destroyed investments that were meant to assist in meeting the Internally Generated Revenue of the institution.

The University's main library had on February 2, 2017 also caught fire in the early hours of the day. The cause of the incident was traced to an electric circuit failure. Reports claimed that the fire started at the basement of the library as a mild explosion was heard at repeated intervals forcing the library staffs to sound the alarm.

Speaking on the development, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor AbdulGaniy Ambali, said that a panel to probe the fire incident had been set up, adding that the disaster had brought the institution back by about eight years.

He, however, refused to acknowledge the growing rumour on campus that the fire was caused through metaphysical means.

Ambali, who also acknowledged such rumours, argued that there was no scientific evidence to back them hence the need to look at the verifiable means by which the fire could have erupted.

"We have set up a team of professors to look into what really happened that day and give us a report", Ambali said lamenting that the teak plantation was one way the university had sought to increase its IGR in a few years time but that with the incident, the ability to generate money from the project has been extended by several years.

However, sources within the university argued that the fire bore all the tell-tale of metaphysical occurrence, as the fire not only crossed the mechanical barriers built within the plantation to prevent paddocks of teaks from possible fire attack, but the fire actually crossed the tarred road and jumped into the other side.

A source in the university said: "I know we are in the university and we are not supposed to believe what cannot be scientifically proved, but the truth is that in Nigeria you know you will always have many ways to look into an incident like that, so we have the scientific and we have the traditional, we have been told that some people placed eggs in some places across the campus so that once the fire started at one spot, wherever the eggs were placed, he fire would spread there at the same time. And look at it yourself, the fire started at the education faculty and was supposed to be contained there by our own fire fighters but it spread to other places, including the teak plantation even when there were artificial barriers to prevent such occurrence at the entire plantation and not only that, the fire jumped the tarred road and spread everywhere. There is more to it, definitely."

A student who witnessed the fire incident at the main library was reported to have said: "I have a test today by 2pm so I decided to stay in the library for a very quick revision, it was less than 30 minutes when I got there that I heard a woman shouting ‘everybody leave, everybody should leave now.

"Before we know what's happening, people were already rushing, feeling so scared. Although some of us still remain calm trying to find out what went wrong, we suddenly felt a vibration as the whole library was shaking, it started from the first floor and was moving towards the last floor..."